The Magician's Assistant
by MaggieMay19
Summary: This little scene takes place between 'Green Thumb' and 'White lines'. Jane has met every member of Abbot's team - except Wylie...


Jason Wylie was nervous. OK, so nervous was his ground-state of being, everyone else on the planet seemed to have everything sussed compared to him, but right here, right now, he was super-nervous. The cause of his nervousness hadn't taken a backwards glance since sitting him at this table and joining the queue at the counter. He would have preferred a corner table or a booth, but he had been sat with his back to the door at this table in the middle of the coffee shop and he was too nervous to move. He was bright enough to realise that he'd probably been sat here deliberately, in the chair he least wanted to sit on, at the table where he least wanted to sit.

Patrick Jane had been polite enough to ask him what he wanted to drink but hadn't hidden his knowing nod when he'd finally stuttered 'latte'. The man would drink tea, of course. This coffee shop also had a wide selection of teas, from what he knew of the man Wylie expected Jane to return with English Breakfast at this time of day. His Mom drank tea and although coffee had powered him through college then Quantico Wylie still drank tea sometimes, especially in the afternoons. He liked the color as well as the taste of English Breakfast, a richer, more orange-brown than the unappetising-looking brews most places served.

He hadn't noticed Jane being served but suddenly here he was, setting a cup and a mug down on the table before gracefully sitting, his dazzling smile hiding what he was really thinking, as if drinking tea with some strange FBI analyst was the highlight of his morning so far. Wylie, ever polite, managed a strangled 'thank you' before he subsided into slightly awed silence, his eyes round as saucers.

"So Agent Wylie, you're the only member of the team I haven't met yet." Disconcertingly, Jane's eyes never left Wylie's but he paused politely, allowing Wylie to join the conversation. Yeah, thought Wylie, this isn't a friendly chat. You're sizing me up.

"Uh, it's 'Analyst Wylie,' sir, not 'Agent.'" Great. He sounded like a real doofus. He knew he was intelligent, diligent, thorough and good at his job. His college lecturers and the training staff at Quantico knew it too, so did Abbott. The thing was, he knew he always came across as a doofus to start with. Jane shook his head. Wyle took the opportunity to steal a glance at Jane's cup: English Breakfast.

"Not 'Sir.' Abbot is 'Sir.' Or Fischer, maybe." The hint of a smile, always on his face, widened a little at these last three words.

"Sorry, Mr. Jane–"

"Just 'Jane.'"

"Yes, si– Mist– Jane." Wylie gulped a breath and stopped. Patrick's eyes didn't waver. He had expected he would have to do most of the work in the conversation – the words, at least. Wylie's expressions and body language were coming through loud and clear, much more confident than his words. Interesting.

"Cho tells me you're the guy who found me in Brooklyn."

"Yes si–, I mean yes. I spotted your graffiti in the satellite photo."

"That was pretty fast work, Analyst Wylie. I barely had time to finish my hotdog before they picked me up. Lets say twenty minutes for the locals to mobilise and drive to my location, that means you found me in twenty minutes or less from the time I sprayed my name onto the road. Cho said you did it on your own time, too. You weren't on the team then."

"No. It's what made Agent Abbott invite me onto the team." Wylie visibly swallowed the 'sir' that had formed on his lips at the end of his sentence.

Jane thought Wyle was doing pretty well. The man would have had training but Jane had done plenty to make him feel out of his comfort zone.

"You knew they were looking for me because…?"

"I was keeping an eye out for anything, uh, related to you. I mean, they'd asked us to work the Schneiderman case but the hunt for you was a case in the system as well, so with it being lunchtime I decided to read it over then I pulled up the satellite images to see if they'd missed anything."

"And you, in particular, were interested in me, in particular, because…?" Wylie had been expecting the question, had hoped Jane wouldn't get to this point so quickly. He decided to take a sip of his cooling latte, noticing without surprise that Jane took a sip of his tea at the same time, though he never took his eyes off Wylie even for a moment. Wylie decided to come clean.

"When Abbott first started looking for you I was tasked with searching for anything that might indicate your whereabouts. So I, um, read your files. All of them. The CBI ones, the FBI ones, the Homeland Security ones –"

"You read Kirkland's files on me?"

"Oh yes." Wylie was warming to his theme now, enthusiasm apparent on his face and in his voice. "The FBI wouldn't normally get access to Homeland Security information without a warrant, but when he was arrested for Marx's murder and the kidnapping of Haibach and, and you… Well, all his files on you personally became part of our investigation just before he was shot trying to escape…" Something flitted across Jane's face that made Wylie wish he hadn't mentioned it. The files had been very clear about Jane's sense of responsibility – and indeed actual responsibility – for a surprising number of deaths. Wylie still couldn't quite square that last information with everything else he had learned about the man.

"Any more?" Jane prompted, his face again an impenetrable mask.

"Um, I read the files of all the cases you closed, and, ah, the files of complaints." Wylie looked embarrassed. "The transcripts of your murder trial, the Visualise material on you, all the video footage we could get of your various TV appearances, a lot of the newspaper reviews of your stage and Carnival acts, all the way back to the first mention we could find of the Boy Wonder in a newspaper archive from Springfield, Missouri in nineteen eighty-seven." Patrick let his surprise show on his face.

"You were very thorough."

Wylie grinned. "I like to think so."

"Who else read them?"

"Oh, no-one." Wylie seemed surprised at the question. "I mean, the information I thought might help track you down and a biographical summary went to Abbott, I think his team would have had access to those too. Abbott had already read your CBI personnel file but I don't think he read your cases, he would have found you sooner if he had. Both of my reports are in your Austin records now, the personnel file for the bio and the case file for the rest. But no-one else would have read everything. I mean," he chuckled at the recollection, "It took me nearly two solid weeks just to assemble and read through them all, another week to go back over everything and produce the two reports. I never did get a warrant for any childhood records so that microfiche mention of the 'Boy Wonder' was the oldest thing I could find. I got a local agent to track it down, they photographed it on their phone and emailed it to me. You were eleven then, I think."

Jane had seen nothing but ingenuous honesty in Wylie as the man had described his work with evident pride. It was probably true that no-one else had read anything other than the two summaries Wylie had written. It was obvious to Jane that Wylie was clever, imaginative, thorough – and fascinated with him on a personal level. That intrigued Jane. Wylie wasn't gay but had shown more than a professional level of interest in him personally.

"Visualise material. I thought Haffner made that up." Jane sounded as though he was talking to himself but his eyes were still on Wylie – who thought he was deflecting, actually more interested in something else.

"They don't teach it any more, but it was mentioned in one of the old FBI cases against Styles. I got the Sacramento office to scan it for me."

"So what's your conclusion, Analyst Wylie?" Jane's voice was soft but his eyes were still penetrating. "I can tell you didn't venture an opinion in your reports but would you say you agree with CBI Special Agent In Charge Wainwright, that I'm a clinical psychopath, or would you side more with FBI Agent Darcy's opinion that I'm a cunning manipulative sociopath? You've done more research on me than either of them, after all."

"Oh, my Mom taught me it's rude to make snap judgements," Wylie grinned, with a twinkle in his eyes. Jane roared with laughter, throwing his head back in genuine mirth, attracting stares from every other person in the coffee shop. Wylie continued to grin as Jane's laughter subsided, appreciating the depth of amusement that his reply had elicited in the man.

"So when were you a magician's assistant, Wylie? At college?" Now it was Wylie's turn to chuckle.

"Yeah. I auditioned for a dare, and I got picked to be a plant in the audience. It was a mentalist act, a bit like your act from the theatre performance days from what I could tell."

"Smartest guy in the room, huh?"

Wylie shook his head, though he was still smiling.

"I was always good with computers. I found them easy, you know? People were confusing to me, but not computers. Then at the audition all the other guys were into magic and I thought I didn't stand a chance. That was the first time I ever heard anyone use that phrase. They all wanted to be the smartest guy in the room. The audition itself was just the guy doing a trick and asking us to explain how he did it. Half the magic guys couldn't see it but I thought it was really obvious. So anyway, he picked three of us, including me."

"Yeah, I recruited in colleges too, sometimes. I'd have my usual team who toured with me, mostly aspiring magicians, sometimes actors because you'd be surprised," Jane waggled his eyebrows conspiratorially, "how few women were into doing magic. Then I'd add around five locals, they could be college kids or local actors or just people I met in a bar. I could always find plenty of people who were happy to do the job and who were prepared to take the secrets to the grave, all for the sake of being 'the smartest guy in the room.'" Jane's tone was light but he was looking through Wylie now at something only he could see. The reverie only lasted a few seconds.

"I wish I could have seen you in action back when you were touring." Wylie sounded a little wistful. Jane briefly contemplated the elephant in the room then decided to ignore it. Too many things these days made him feel old, he didn't need to add to their number.

The magician's assistant. That would explain Wylie. He'd learned everything he could about Jane. His reports had inspired wariness in every FBI agent who read them but Wylie himself had liked what he read. He could see how the trick worked and understood the spirit of the magician rather than just reacting like a cop. Jane briefly contemplated disillusioning him, but refrained. Wylie already knew all the bad stuff, too. He wasn't as naïve as he looked. Jane decided he liked him.

"Well I'm working with the FBI now, Wylie. We're on the same team. I'm sure there'll be times when I'll need a little… creative assistance. From the smartest guy in the room."

The grin that spread across Wylie's face now was a mirror image of Jane's. He knew it was probably inappropriate for an FBI Analyst but he found he didn't care.


End file.
